That is a question I have heard. I've thought about it, and I'll answer it like this.
In my riding, if someone abuses the EI system, they don't get their EI, even though they might have family at home. If someone is convicted in a court of law of a crime, and that person is the breadwinner and they go to jail, the family is in trouble. We haven't made special allowances for that. In the same vein, I believe that in this case the measures should apply. If someone commits a crime against taxpayers and is found guilty in a court of law, the pension should be revoked.
Here's my safeguard. We have made some significant changes to the pension allowances for members of Parliament. We're contributing more now than we were when we were elected in 2011, and after the next election it's going to go up even higher. We'll be contributing about $38,000 a year. I'll just pull a number; in 10 years that's $380,000 plus the interest that has accrued. That will go back to the member should the member be found guilty. That's still a sizeable amount when you compare it to other members of the Canadian public who themselves through bad decisions and bad choices could also face hard times.
I think as a body we need to put ourselves on the same level as every other Canadian out there, and while I don't believe we need a special mechanism to assist other family members, I do believe that by reimbursing pension contributions we're talking a significant amount of money.
I suppose that's my remedy to that question, and highlights that I have given it some thought. However, I do think we can't put ourselves in a class that's different when on other matters we expect Canadians to take responsibility for their actions when they are judged to be poor ones.